Fresh Faces & New Beginnings: Behind the Scenes of Welcome Week
Welcome Week is something every college student experiences at one point or the other. At Arcadia, it’s an entire week of festivities and fun, but it specifically surrounds the next generation of Arcadia students.
When I was a first-year, Welcome Week consisted of several fun games, drag bingo events, assemblies, and I believe there was a magician if I’m not mistaken. We even had a drone show, live music, food trucks, and art markets galore! Festivities aside, usually during this time you get put into an orientation group with other incoming first-years, and these groups are run by an orientation leader (OL)! This leader is usually an upperclassman at Arcadia, and I remember my orientation leader in my first year was a guy named Shady.
Shady wore a bucket hat and a colorful lei, which made him stand out to me as a person. He was clearly excited to be there, and he helped make a hard transitional week better! The change you experience as you move onto a college campus is real, but the people and faculty here really try their best to make it as smooth of a transition as possible.
With this in mind, as I approached my final year, I wanted to give back to the community I’ve called home for these past few years. I remembered how it felt to be a freshman moving onto a college campus, and I wanted to help the next generation of Arcadia students get acclimated here. So I applied to be an OL, and luckily, I was able to get the position!
Fast forward to Welcome Week Fall 2024, I was able to move onto campus early for training and all student leaders came together to strategize a game plan for Welcome Week. Peer mentors, Orientation leaders, Student ambassadors, and Student Experience Leaders alike all come together with a “student first” mentality. To us, nothing is more important than getting the newcomers situated and ready for the upcoming school year.
As a call-back to Shady, for the entirety of Welcome Week, I wore a colorful lei, and I hope I was able to stand out as much as I remember Shady standing out. As an OL, I helped check in residents, run workshops and events, direct students to their proper places, helped break the ice between new folks, and put together a TON of name tags. It was lots of fun, and a little hectic at times, but overall, it was truly fulfilling.
There’s this specific group of first-years that linked together and formed a friend group. I had the luxury of seeing this group of friends form, and during a board game event, I was able to sit with them and watch a game of uno unfold. This group had different understandings of the rules, which led to many funny moments between them. Eventually, the game became a mix-match of every way you could play uno into one, and everyone had a lot of laughs. One week later, while I was walking around campus, I saw that same group hanging out together in the Chat! And honestly, seeing them enjoy the start of their college journey together made my heart grow twice its size.
Being an OL required me to get up early, and stay up late on certain days, but the work I put in to help the incoming freshmen’s lives easier is something I would have done a thousand times over. I’m beyond grateful for the opportunity to give back to my community, and all and all, I just hope I was able to be helpful to those who needed it.
